The Lewiston Area Youth Hockey midgets opened national championship play with a 13-2 rout of the Atlanta Fire on Wednesday in Gates Mills, Ohio.

Eight different players lit the lamp for Lewiston. Sam Cloutier tallied a hat trick and two assists. Ryan Lemelin and Drake Hart racked up two goals apiece and Alex Parker and Shane Hearn each chipped in with a goal and three assists.

“We started off a little slow, but it didn’t take us long to start making plays,” coach Bob Parker said.

Lewiston scored two power-play goals in the first period to take a 3-1 lead after one, then exploded for four goals in the second and six more in the third. Lewiston ended up going 4-for-6 on the power play and outshot Atlanta, 58-19.

“We took a lot of shots and took advantage of the power play opportunities we had. We just  worked harder than them,” said forward Cody Rodrigue of St. Dom’s, who had a third period goal.

“They were pretty physical,” he added. “They used their body a lot and we used our speed.”

Cam Poussard made 17 saves in net for Lewiston, which consists of players from Lewiston, St. Dom’s, and Messalonskee high schools and Hebron Academy.

Round robin play continues at 6 p.m. Thursday against the Atlanta Jr. Knights. All games are streamed on the Internet and can be viewed, for a fee, at http://usahockey.fasthockey.com/login.php.